Many years ago I volunteered with a friend and her father, a Vietnam War Veteran, on the Moving Wall Memorial.

He told me a lot of stories, but one in particular stood out.

He was a helicopter door gunner in a formation inside of Cambodia.

He said one of the helicopters took small arms fire and made a soft crash landing, which was easily survivable. The men radioed back to their command for permission to rescue the downed soldiers, but were told to return to base and never speak about that day. Presumably this was because the mission was illegal as they were in Cambodia.

He told me that he felt extreme guilt over this incident, and because of this he became the director of the local chapter of the POW/MIA foundation.

He also told me that during his research for this group, he found solid evidence or heard rumors of the existence of such evidence, including satellite or aerial photography, of 'Old, American looking men', wearing tattered clothes, sometimes tattered fatigues, being worked by old, Vietnamese men inside camps deep in the Siberian wilderness.

He told me there was a lot of other evidence that American POW's had been moved to Siberian camps, and that he and his group had repeatedly petitioned the American government through FOIA requests and written petitions, for more information.

He told me these things over 10 years ago and I have since lost touch with that family. I have found little solid evidence, most of it is anecdotal and sometimes meanders into the conspiratorial, to corroborate these stories.

I was wondering if there is real, hard evidence that American POWs were spotted alive in Siberia as recently as the 1990's.

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Switzerland is known front it's economic freedom and low state interventionism (as far as I know), but was it the same during the Great Depression of 1929? Majority of western countries switched from free market economy to keynesizm, did Switzerland did the same?

Since the world Neo means new I was wondering what the original Assyrian, Babylonian, and Sumerian Empires were since there are Neo-Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian, and a Neo-Sumerian Empires?

So i was watching "the terror", and when i saw John Franklin's death in the series, i started wondering if this could be a possibility. I read in Michael Palin's "Erebus" that he would go out for walks on the ice. Is there any way we could know if he went out alone, and is it possible he got attacked by a polar bear on one of these strolls or is it a definite no? Thanks :)

Despite this war providing a convenient battlefield to fight against communism and World Revolution, Russian fugitives from Soviet regime numbering hundreds of thousands and Franco with his background of career soldier earning a nickname of "Spanish Kornilov" among Russian sympathizers, only few Russian volunteers fought on Nationalist side in this conflict. Some sources count less than a hundred Russian volunteers in Franco's forces (at least in known definitely Russian unit). It's incomparable with the wide-scale involvement of Russian emigres in WW2 on Nazi side. And it's probably even much less than number of Russian emigrants who fought in the International Brigades on Republican side (not in the corps of "advisors" sent by USSR)! Apathy and even ambivalence of the "White Russians" regarding Spanish Civil War puzzles me (when compared also to the large numbers of other nationals volunteering for both sides).

How much bread you could buy?

rent/boarding costs?

really anything to help me scale the value, obviously it isn't very much but the cost of living was very different in those times.

I ask this because of Les Miserables. What would 10 francs buy?

At school in history we went through the WW2 timeline and ever since then I have been under the impression that the USSR played the largest role in ending WW2. However nower days everyone seems to think that the USA had the biggest impact in ending the war and some of my friends think that the USA were actively involved from the Start of the war. I was wondering at what point in history the perception was formed that the USA had biggest impact in the war and that they basically singlehandedly won the war? Is it just down to propaganda or am I missing something?

I read in a documentary about Roman Britain that the withdrawal of the Roman Empire from Britain set back the clock back quite a bit. In fact, immediately pre-roman Britain seemed to be a bit ahead of post-roman Britain (5th-6th centuries). That got me thinking. How far back did the collapse of the Roman Empire in the west set back civilization? And how quickly did they recover?

I know Spain recovered quickly when the Arabs invaded, and then the Byzantine Empire probably also helped with rebuilding in some areas, but I'm not sure about other areas of the empire in the west.

The Goths integrated into the local cultures of what is now Italy, Spain, Portugal and Eastern Europe. The Franks adopted Gallo-Roman culture in what is now France. The Normans assimilated into French culture and other Viking groups integrated into Slavic, Irish and Scottish culture. Why didn’t the Anglo-Saxons assimilate into the Celtic-Roman culture they conquered? Was the scale of migration much larger than other Germanic groups or were there other factors?

The Soviet Union voted in favor of a Jewish state during the UN Partition Plan, and recognized Israel days after it declared independence anticipating they would side with the Soviets. I understand that many, if not most of the early Zionists were secular and at the very least, leaned socialist, but other than that, I can't think of any reason. I guess another reason could be the disdain the Zionists had towards the British during the Mandate period could effect their attitude towards the US, but that's pretty flimsy. After it was clear Israel sided with the US, Stalin supported the Arabs.

When viewing many maps of the USA showing states a lot of the borders are very defined or angular. When viewing counties of England on a map they are more free flowing and ‘loose’.

Is this for ease of dividing territory on maps? A regional thing? Scale (ie US state compatible to England in size, never mind an English county) ? Are these straight borders actually reminiscent in any way of the actual state lines?

Just curious. As someone brought up studying English history a lot of maps consist of irregular shapes with ‘softer’ borders vs the defined angular borders of maps of the US.

Hey Guys, I can understand why so many Greeks hate Turks with the ottoman empire stuff and so on. But I never understood what happened that Turks hate Greeks. Can someone explain me what happened between them?

I think of fire and boats at the most basic levels, but the bow and arrow is a fairly complex device to have emerged in completely different places.

I guess I'm curious about what the most complex inventions were that sprang up independently of one another.

Or, is there a list or a book that focuses on this subject?

I was reminded by today's Google Doodle of Chiune Sugihara, the "Japanese Schindler" who saved thousands of Jews by giving them valid visas to travel through Japan.

How was he able to do this if Japan was an Axis Powers country, allied with Nazi Germany?